Research:
Observation rather than experimentation dominates the study of animal behavior, a limit to our understanding. We require the ability to study behavior while aspects of an animal's environment can be controlled. To meet this goal, we built a biosphere (FlyWorld) in which we can control various parameters to replicate the pertinent aspects of an animal's natural environment.
Resource quality varies over time and space-quite scarce during certain times in the life of a fly. Thus, it seems flies would stay indefinitely on an established resource, but casual observation proves this false. At various times scales: moment-to-moment, over the course of a day, or throughout a lifetime, flies leave resources. What external and internal cues influence the probability to leave? How do these cues interact? What mechanisms underlie the ability to integrate and process these cues? Is movement directed simply by cue saliency? Or do animals carry out some rudimentary cost-benefit analysis?
Within a neuroethological context, resource emigration in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster provides a useful model to study such elementary decision making. With the molecular tools available in Drosophila, I propose a model for future study of the neural circuits involved in this process
Education:
B.A., Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, 1996
Links:
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR INTEREST GROUP
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